From Charity to Equity—Race, Homelessness, and Urban Schools

Students experiencing homelessness often face overwhelming obstacles that limit both their access to education and their prospects for success in life. The McKinney-Vento Act (1987) was created to ensure that schools provide services that support students in unstable housing situations but, unfortunately, effective implementation of important provisions continues to be elusive. In addition, adults charged with McKinney-Vento implementation in schools voice frustration with overload and lack of support or consistent resources. Through interviews with youth experiencing homelessness, Aviles de Bradley introduces readers to their remarkable resilience under fire and their determination to thrive despite the systemic inequities they encounter daily. The book also explores how poor people of color experience and interface with social institutions, namely schools, and uncovers important connections between homelessness and racism using a Critical Race Theory framework. Readers are challenged to see McKinney-Vento implementation not as charity, but as an issue of legislated social justice and to work towards educational equity for students experiencing homelessness. Book “Ann M. Aviles de Bradley... draws on an intersectional framework to carefully examine the polices and practices that shape outcomes for homeless youth in large urban centers such as Chicago. Her carefully contextualized examinations of the racialized experiences of homeless youth of color brings a searing poignancy and richness to the work which sets it apart all the others. This book will completely transform the way we think about how to address the needs of homeless youth in our schools.”

— Marvin Lynn , Dean and Professor, School of Education, Indiana University South Bend “Dr. Aviles de Bradley succinctly captures a conversation many in the United States are afraid to engage the relationship between race and homelessness. Her research contributes to the larger project of justice in education by challenging conventional notions of educational policy formation and implementation with dexterity and care. Moving us away from charity and toward equity is a bold and necessary move in any grounded struggle toward transformative education.”

— David Stovall , Educational Policy Studies and African-American Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago